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Sunday, Nov 8, 2009
Still, you should consider the conditions in Russia, and in Germany at the time of those successes. A lost war which had wiped out an entire generation, and the crushing poverty which followed it in Germany, a huge peasant population in Russia which literally didn't know who was running things, or to what end -- unschooled in modern politics and economics at all.
I am considering those conditions. Kevin Phillips is seing those sorts of conditions on the way. So is Chalmers Johnson. There is a huge population here that doesn't know who is running things. If there wasn't George Bush would not be president.
To turn the American people into that kind of cannon fodder would be quite a trick, no matter how distasteful they find kinky sex, or how incomprehensible scientific research is to them.
Permanent war and the threat of a permanent enemy turn people into that. That's what has been going on.
Also, the creation of alternate realities is an enormously labor and energy-intensive enterprise. Every unpleasant fact, every ideological deviation, must have its counter-foghorn (presently) or its secret policeman/commissar (in your hypothetical future.) Could -- can -- our present right-wing nasties manage this in a country of 300 million consumers? Frankly, I doubt it.
They don't have to. Read Huxley's essays on totalitarian propaganda. They didn't have to do that in Germany. Most people will remain oblivious, happy in their private lives. Its only the people that take an interest in politics that pose a problem.
And then, of course, there's us. We aren't exactly standing around, I hope....
Look, "nascent" does not mean "imminent", and stating that movement conservatism is a nascent totalitarian movement does not mean that totalitarianism is what will happen to America.
The fact that people know Bush's lies ... that's the point. Now is the time that you stop totalitarianism ... you never let it happen in the first place. That's the road movement conservatism is headed down, and people need to know that. To know what is at stake.
The founding fathers saw in a tea tax - a TEA TAX - the road to tyranny. Given that they had no democratic recourse, they waged a revolution to win their freedom. We have our freedom, we have our democratic recourse, so my message is LET'S USE IT OR LOSE IT. What's going on now, the Constitutional violations happening, are more serious than a tea tax.
I haven’t been tuned in to GG long enough to have sorted through possible clues that might suggest where Raj and mbf and others reside. I know that Mr. W-T was in Berkeley, and surmise that he is still.
Point being that in our very large nation of various states, geography matters.
For example, I live in the Bible Belt. Within that already pretty conservative sphere, I work in an especially conformist and fundamentalist sub-culture: Public Safety. I observe daily the reality of mbf’s concerns. The Good Christian (mostly) Men (mostly) with whom I work sincerely believe that ours is a Christian Nation, that dissent is unPatriotic, literally that we are created in God’s image, that America’s Divinely Destined role is to advance Christianity, and that the exterior world is arrayed with Satan against Us. I see every day that, yes, It could happen here. And that this is how It all begins: good people earnestly doing what they think is right for their families. These Good People are vulnerable to, and readily buy into, Hanitty, Limbaugh, Malkin, Kurtz, et al. I see them biding their time to achieve the Nation they believe to be Righteous. They follow those leaders whom they perceive to be on their (God’s) side. They will hasten It by the barrel of a gun, if ordered to, if the opportunity presents, and if they perceive no other way to do it. They are biding their time. They are teaching their children.
Meanwhile, on the other hand, I also know (from my tenures of residency in DC suburban Maryland and San Francisco) that It is not even nascent in some places as in others, for the same reasons: good people doing what they think is right for their families.
[Just for fun: I would guess that mbf lives in a Rural or New South Urban environment and that Raj is in a college town or a multi-cultured large urban center. Doesn’t matter if I’m wrong about where you live…. Just sayin’]
To further complicate things:
Our fundamental conflict concerning how we will rule ourselves has been raging in this nation since before its founding. It’s rooted in the debate over slavery (which was crucial for the economic survival of its practitioners and which de facto required authoritarianism for maintenance). We tabled the discussion via the Missouri Compromise. The vital debate erupted again with the secession of the Confederacy when that compromise expired. It has continued throughout our history. It remains our endemic elephant in the living room. It is not at all inconceivable that our great nation could again be torn asunder over the authoritarian/liberal divide, riven by secessions and wars among two, three, or more moral/religious, socio-economic, or political rivalries, because we are still figuring out how to resolve these issues over who we are. And for some, it seems more important to assert who they are, rather than ensuring that we stick together. All it would take to rapidly accelerate the cleavage (as we all know - sorry for restating the already obvious)) is another 11 September 2001 attack. Or something else. Anyway, part of the existing United States would be enough of a victory, just like the one sought in the mid 1860s. The liberal vision today remains Union.
More idle speculation:
Could one hypothesize an evolutionary psychology that explains how our species has persisted via simultaneous or alternating authoritarian and liberal tribal styles? I think this matters if in addition to the geography considerations, authoritarian v. liberal tendencies - and the responses to same - might be genetically transmitted. As time has marched on and human population increased, the external threats that made authoritarianism useful might have had benefits that are now outweighed by destructive costs incurred by turning us against each other. Or maybe it is a useful mechanism for thinning the herd, enabling optimal distribution of resources? Oy! I’m giving myself a headache. As someone once said: I gotta quit posting.
Peace,
Gordon
Much of the initial coverage about Fort Hood turned out to be wrong. Is there anything wrong with that?
The accountability imposed by another country for the CIA's kidnapping and torture reveals much about our own.
Fox News' morning show plays to type, talking about whether Muslims in the Army should face "special debriefings"
219 Democrats and one Republican join in favor of the legislation, which passed by a narrow margin
The survivor and author is upset about comparisons some on the right are making to genocide
Salon headlines in your mailbox
